


Eidetic Fallout

by thesignsofserbia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst, Clueless John, Cold Weather, Doctor John, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e01 The Empty Hearse, Gen, I do that a lot, I kind of glossed over what happens immediately after His Last Vow, John is a Good Friend, John is back at Bakers Street, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Night Terrors, POV John Watson, PTSD Sherlock, Past Torture, Photographic Memory, Post injury, Post-His Last Vow, Post-Series, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychosomatic pain, Sad Sherlock, Serbia - Freeform, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock Is Not Okay, Sherlock deals with trauma, Sherlock not coping, Sherlock-centric, Sleepwalking, Smoking, Supportive John, Winter, but it's not john, fire escape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-09
Updated: 2015-06-09
Packaged: 2018-04-03 14:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4104595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesignsofserbia/pseuds/thesignsofserbia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remember (verb); have in or be able to bring to one's mind an awareness of someone or something that one has seen, known, or experienced in the past.</p><p>His memory is perfect; sublime. But just occasionally he wishes that it weren’t. Sometimes, Sherlock just wants to forget.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eidetic Fallout

**Author's Note:**

> I seem to have this fixation with Sherlock coping with the aftermath of his time away, I don't seem to be able to write much else.

 

 

It is bloody freezing in the flat for no apparent reason and suspect number one is nowhere to be seen. It’s nearly one in the morning and John’s just walked in the door after working a hectic double shift at his new job in A&E (on top of everything he literally got _peed_ on). He’s tired and frankly just wants to go to bed so this damn day will just end already.

  
He follows the draught down the hallway to its source, which, unsurprisingly, is Sherlock’s bedroom. The window is wide open and the frigid air has already dispersed itself through the whole building and he hates to think what the heating bill is going to look like, it’s February for christsake, what was the idiot thinking?

  
This had better not be an experiment. John’s going to give him an earful when he turns up, he’d forgotten what it was like, having Sherlock for a flatmate with Sherlock dying and him getting married and everything. He’d forgotten how much it tested his blood pressure.

  
He strides over to the window to slam it shut when he smells it; tobacco smoke. Great; just great. This was perfect, he’s back to destroying his lungs too. He peers out, squinting through the dark, and spots Sherlock’s profile silhouetted against the wall, a few metres away on the fire escape, smoking in the shadows.

  
How did he always manage to look so striking and mysterious? Even when John was furious with him, _and_ he was doing something that John hated, like smoking. Majestic git. John was probably the least glamourous person in the world, maybe Sherlock keeps him around because he provided such a stark contrast, making him appear more stylish; _‘I take the precaution of a good coat and a short friend’_ he thinks sarcastically to himself.

  
John sticks his head out of the window, _bloody hell it’s cold,_ and is about to ask him what the fuck he thinks he’s doing, when the light catches his flatmate’s face and the words dissolve in his mouth. He looks at him, really observes the man.

  
Sherlock’s sitting on the metal fire escape with his back against the bricks, dressed only in thin pyjama bottoms, a t-shirt, and his favourite blue dressing gown. He’s not even wearing socks. He must be frozen solid, but is giving no indication that he’s registering the cold at all, he’s probably numb.

  
God knows how long he’s been sitting there.

  
Maybe it’s a Danger Night, he never can tell, plus Sherlock’s been even more closed off since killing Magnussen. He still can’t believe Sherlock did that, in spite of having seen it happen seen it happen. He shot the man _in the face_ , it was premeditated and without remorse, he didn’t even _hesitate._

  
But the look on Sherlock’s face sways his anger, and the flat being a bit chilly suddenly seems trivial in comparison, the anger drains from him. Sherlock’s despondent, he’s staring straight ahead, but he’s not absent; he’s fully alert. He just looks so… _sad_. John doesn’t think he’s ever seen him so openly emotional. He’s just raising the cigarette to his mouth compulsively, as if he’s on auto pilot.

  
Sherlock is aware that John’s discovered his hiding place, he must be (let’s face it, John’s approach hadn’t been the most covert), but he doesn’t acknowledge him. His face contorts and does something complex before relapsing back to forlorn. It’s an attempt to put up his impenetrable armour, and for some reason it’s not working. John flounders for a while before coming to a decision.

  
Wordlessly he climbs out of the window and settles down next to his friend on the fire escape, John doesn’t look at Sherlock directly, and he asks nothing of him, he just wants to offer his silent support. They sit there, shoulder to shoulder, and John’s freezing his arse off, but he’s far more concerned about Sherlock, who’s extremely underdressed for the biting winter chill. He’s not just worried about him physically either.

  
John waits and Sherlock chain-smokes with a shaking hand.

  
The light’s not good and John’s only watching him in his periphery but he’s fairly certain that Sherlock is crying. He looks closer until he’s absolutely sure. He _is_ crying, steadily and without restraint, there are tears slipping down his face unchecked. This is unprecedented in all the time they’ve lived together.

  
John doesn’t ask if Sherlock’s okay because he’s clearly not.

   
Sherlock really does hate it when people state the obvious.

  
John doesn’t know why Sherlock is crying, but he can see how utterly miserable he is, and he struggles to keep his composure and support his friend. _Don’t cry Watson, you were a soldier. Get a grip._

 _  
_They sit there until John’s feet are numb and Sherlock’s trembling all over, fingers clumsy with the cold and struggling to hold his cigarette.

  
John follows Sherlock as he climbs back into the flat, and at first Sherlock doesn’t seem to know what to do, John had surprised him by offering such unwavering companionship and he’s humiliated by what he sees as a show of weakness.

  
Sherlock is avoiding John’s eye as he closes the window so he steps into the taller man’s space, and he can’t help it, he crushes Sherlock into a hug and holds on tightly, until he relaxes and reciprocates, resting his head on John’s shoulder. Sherlock’s skin is icy and has a disconcerting blueish tinge to it.

  
Sherlock seems to have recovered a bit so John pulls back and makes Sherlock look him in the eye.

  
“You need to warm up; I’m going to turn up the heating. Get some sleep, yeah?” John watches his face to make sure that he’s not going to be evasive.

  
Sherlock nods jerkily and moves to get under the covers, and as John exits the room he hears Sherlock’s reticent whisper;

  
“ _Thank you.”_  
  


~

  
There’s a resounding _crack_ and a surprised yelp in the middle of the night, a couple of days after the fire-escape incident, that has John’s soldier instincts snap into gear, and he’s halfway down the stairs before he’s even properly awake.

  
He skids into the kitchen in record time with his weapon drawn, chest bare, he flicks the light on and scans the room for threats.

  
Instead, he finds a startled Sherlock Holmes, also dressed for bed with curls made even more unruly by sleep. He’s gripping the kitchen table for support, blinking at the sudden brightness, staring in alarm at the gun. There’s a little trickle of blood running down his forehead.

 

 

“What the hell happened? Why were you in here in the dark?” John questions him, shaky with the adrenaline rush as he re-engages the safety and puts his Sig down.

  
“I…uh, I don’t know. I think I walked into the…that,” he gestures to the half open sliding doors to the sitting room, the left one is indeed a bit crooked and John’s impressed it didn’t break.

  
“You walked into…?” Sherlock was so graceful he almost seemed to glide around the flat so why…? Hang on, “Wait, Sherlock were you… _sleep walking_?” Oh this was priceless; Greg was going to love this.

  
But Sherlock isn’t laughing or even indignant, he looked strained, uncomfortable and is still bleeding a bit. John sighs and moves to examine him,

  
“C’mon, let me clean you up.”

  
The cut was superficial, but it’s an unspoken rule that John tends to all of Sherlock’s injuries, no matter how petty. Or…that’s how it used to be. He washes it and patches it up with a couple of steri-strips, the whole time Sherlock is grimacing, but not at John’s ministrations, it’s like he’s bruised or pulled a muscle in his back or something. Sherlock’s got an alarmingly high pain tolerance (which does more harm than good sometimes), so it’s weird to see him fussing, he’s really not happy about something.

  
“Hey, if there something wrong with your back?”

  
“What? No.” Sherlock answers just a bit too quickly, but he quickly recovers, trying again more convincingly, “No, it’s alright, my back is fine.”

  
John leans back and tries to not only see but to _observe,_ as this brilliant idiot is always telling him to do. Sherlock’s still a little groggy; off somehow, but his head is fine and he doesn’t have a concussion. What did he like to say? When you’ve discounted the impossible, then whatever is left is true, even if it’s improbable? Something like that.

  
“You’re not ill, and you’re not bleeding anywhere else and as far as I can tell, you’re not hurt. But you are in pain.” John concludes.

  
“I am perfectly alright,” Sherlock claims, and then immediately winces like he’s been whipped, just a little, but John sees it.

  
John’s not amused anymore; “You’re really not.”

  
Sherlock blinks and goes still.

  
_The last thing he remembers is lacerating pain, slicing through his back like fire, he has to run, has to escape. His life depends on it, there are fault lines in his back tearing open and he must get away. Run!_

  
There had suddenly been something in his path and he’d cried out at the sudden obstruction, this had been followed by a minute of panic where he hadn’t known where he was and then John had turned on the lights and everything made sense again. He’d been dreaming; Serbia _again_ , why could he not get past this? It was infuriating.

  
John’s not haunted by the war. But Sherlock is.

  
A war of a different kind.

  
His mind recalls everything so vividly that it borders on rivalling actual visual perception. His memory is perfect; sublime. But just occasionally he wishes that it weren’t. Sometimes, Sherlock just wants to forget.

  
He was still feeling the aftershocks, the pain had been bad, really bad and his damn transport hadn’t cottoned on to the fact that it hadn’t been real (well, it _had_ been once, but it wasn’t now). He feels a bit dizzy and John really wasn’t making it better by needling him.

  
John watches Sherlock’s face blanch and then he lurches from his seat and stumbles to the bathroom without a hint of his usual elegance. He crashes to his knees on the floor next to the loo with a force that will surely bruise.

  
He goes to follow him but Sherlock kicks the door shut in his face.

  
From outside the bathroom John can hear Sherlock being violently sick until he’s struggling to find time to breathe. It eventually peters out to painful sounding dry retching and John shakes his head. Sherlock didn’t eat well at the best of times but today he’s had some success coaxing him to actually eat something, but now he’d lost anything of nutritional value that he’d eaten all day.

  
He makes a trip to the kitchen.

  
“Water,” John announces as he knocks on the door. Sherlock opens the door just enough to accept the water before pushing it shut again. John tries to nudge it open and it’s not locked, but Sherlock must be sitting slumped against it.

  
He doesn’t come out for a long time and John begins to worry that he’s nodded off.

  
When he does re-emerge he’s composed and almost looks his normal self, but his face is a bit pinched, which to those experienced in Sherlock’s subtle expressions, means the detective is hurting.

  
And hurting badly enough that he’d thrown up; his body reacting as if it had been poisoned.

  
“Are you still here?” Sherlock grunts at him with contempt.

  
He scowls at John (because of course everything was _his_ fault, yet again) and pushes past him into his bedroom, burying himself in his covers until all John can see it the top of his head.

  
It’s a dismissal.

  
But John has no intention of being intimidated into backing down; he wants to know what’s going on with his friend. Sherlock is doing his best to pretend John isn’t there but John waits until his presence grates on Sherlock enough that he acknowledges him.

  
His head surfaces long enough to bark;

  
“Damn it John, I’m fine, so you can go away now,”

  
Before disappearing from view again. He’s impossible.

  
“Oh you’re great; just delightful. You’re always in _sparkling_ form when you’ve got your head in the toilet spewing your guts out. You were right, my mistake.” John rebuffs, words dripping with sarcasm.

  
“Good. Duly noted. Thank you.” Comes the flippant reply, slightly muffled from under the duvet.

  
“You’re an arsehole, you know that?”

  
Why did the git have to make a fight out of it every single time? John only wanted to help and instead of working with him he always had to be obnoxious.

  
He receives and angry sigh and then Sherlock flips off the covers with a melodramatic flourish. John wishes they could do without the histrionics, just for once; it would make a nice change.

  
“What do you want me to say? That you’re right? Well you are! I’ve been better, I’m in pain. Are you satisfied with that or should we delve further into business that is no-one’s but my own? Perhaps a full-scale psychoanalysis would be prudent? You’re not the first to try, but hey, maybe you’ll succeed where so many before you failed.”

  
He starts his diatribe with clout but loses steam towards the end; he’s drained from being sick and being up all night. John suddenly gets the feeling that Sherlock would really rather that they not fight as well; he just doesn’t know any other way to go about it.

  
“Sherlock,” John breathes in defeat and sags, sinking down so he’s sitting perched on the side of the bed with his forearms braced on his knees.

  
“John?” Sherlock’s tentative, and a bit confused by John’s surrender, he can never bear it when John’s disappointed in him.

  
“Just…please, tell me what the problem is, you’re my best friend, I want to help. Let me?” God he wishes Sherlock weren’t so stubborn.

  
“I…uh…I don’t feel well,” Sherlock mumbles.

  
Okay then; process of elimination.

  
“Does your stomach hurt? Are you going to be sick again? Abdominal tenderness or indigestion in the last few days?”

  
“No.”

  
“Are you still having problems with your back? That pain you were talking about?”

  
“No.”

  
“Have you got a headache? Could be a migraine coming on?” He shudders, Sherlock takes everything to the extreme, and his migraines are incredibly debilitating, sometimes lasting for days at a time. They are a god awful experience for anyone present. Please don’t let it be that.

  
“No.”

  
“Throat infection?” He’s going out on a limb now.

  
“No.”

  
Sherlock needs to work with John here or this could go on all night, he knows Sherlock is stalling.

  
“What’s the matter then?” John probes.

  
“I don’t feel…whole.” It’s a whisper, Sherlock’s voice is very small.

  
That admission scalds him and he’s caught off guard by it. John looks back over the past few months and a lot of things seem to make more sense now, when put into context, Sherlock’s been struggling with this for a while, whatever it actually is, there have been warning signs, and John missed every one of them.

  
“Will you tell me about it?”

  
“Yes. But not tonight.”

  
John can work with that, they’re both absolutely buggered from fighting and Sherlock being ill, it’s nearly dawn and John desperately needs sleep, though he’s pretty sure he’s going to skive off work tomorrow.

  
He gets Sherlock to budge up and sinks down into Sherlock’s mattress because while the conversation can wait for the morning, or maybe a couple of days, there’s no way he’s leaving his friend alone tonight.

  
“You’re not okay,” He murmurs mostly to himself, still coming to terms with how he’s missed it and what Sherlock must have been going through this whole time, without a word of complaint.

  
“Not really, no.”

  
“No matter how bad it gets, we’ll face it together. I’m in this for the long run.”

 

 

 


End file.
